wfn.org | Lambeth Conference Bible Plenary tackles struggles of faith

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@wfn.org>]

ACNS LC031 - 21 July 1998

Bible Plenary tackles struggles of faith

by Katie Sherrod
Lambeth Conference Communications 

Ancient texts of the Bible were interpreted through the modern
medium of video, the old art of the drama, and the age-old art of
teaching in the first plenary session of the Lambeth Conference
held Tuesday (July 21). 

Study of the scriptures will bracket the Lambeth conference. The
last plenary (August 8) will also feature a video based on
scriptural discussion.

The question facing the plenary planners was not whether the
Bible is important, but whether the Lambeth Conference "had the
courage to tackle the significance of the Bible head on," said
Bishop Stephen Sykes of Ely (England), one of the plenary
planners. 

Video offers perspectives on biblical texts

The plenary began with "A Living Letter," a video by Angela
Tilby, which featured Christine Eames, wife of Robert Eames,
Archbishop of Armagh (Northern Ireland); Mrs. Margaret Sentamu,
wife of the Bishop of Stepney (England), and a Ugandan; Bishop
Sykes; Roger Herft of the Diocese of Rochester (Australia);
Bishop Horace Etesmesi of the Diocese of Butere (Kenya); Bishop
Ann Tottenham, suffragan of Toronto (Canada); and Dr. George
Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury. 

All spoke out of their biblical faith, their church
responsibilities and their commitment to building a healthier
world. 

Their remarks illustrated some of the difficult points at which
scripture intersects with the world-power, poverty, sexuality,
war. But Bishop Herft pointed out that scripture also instructs
us in the ministry of reconciliation: a point powerfully
underscored by Bishop Macleord Ochola of Kitgum (Uganda) in what
was perhaps the video's most moving moment.

"My wife was killed by a landmine last May, and many of our
clergy children have been abducted," he said. "They have done bad
to us but we have to forgive in order to overcome the evil way of
the world."

Drama re-presents Jacob story

The Riding Lights Theatre company presented "Wrestling With
Angels," a drama specially commissioned for Lambeth, written by
Nigel Forde and Paul Burbridge.

While the play's references to the origins of Israel
inadvertently offended the bishop-coadjutor of Jerusalem, who
complained that it slighted Palestinian interests in the Middle
East (see press release #30), the drama's interpretation of
Jacob's encounter with God and with Esau, his brother, moved many
members of the audience to tears. 

The troupe recreated the Old Testament story accompanied by
dramatic music and lighting on a platform stacked with a dozen
6-foot pine-box coffins and bathed in an eerie mist. 

"The play was terrific," said Samuel Arap Ng'eny, a member of the
Anglican Consultative Council from Kenya. The play's depiction of
Jacob wrestling with the God "was a fantastic representation of
what really happens . . . that is what we do. We fight until we
say that 'God has forgotten me,' and, I think, at that point, we
are actually fighting God."

Sara Mani, wife of Bishop Emmanuel Mani of the Diocese of
Maiduguri (Northern Nigeria), called the play "inspiring" for
people from a place like Nigeria. "We have the Muslims that
discriminate about Christian religious knowledge right from
primary school, secondary school," she said. "We have discovered
the love of God that knows no bounds. Prayer lifts our obstacles.
I am encouraged. The drama really brought it out."

David Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity, Cambridge, who headed
up the planning committee for the plenary, said after the
performance, "We have just been reading a living letter. 

"Between Jacob and Esau there is a division about something
apparently non-negotiable . . .[ Jacob] "grapples with the
mysterious wrestler who knows him only too well. He is wounded;
he is given a new identity as Israel, the one who strives with
God; and he is blessed by being reconciled with God and his
brother together. And it is worth being astonished at Esau's act
of forgiveness and peacemaking," Professor Ford said.

"But even more astonishing is the mysterious complexity of God's
action," Professor Ford said. "He both challenges Jacob's
tangled, wrongly complex identity and heals it, opening a way for
him and all his people . . . God blesses through wrestling,
wounding, naming, and facing."

At the end of the Conference, Ford asked will each participant be
able to say to each other: "To see your face is like seeing the
face of God?"

For further information, contact:

Lambeth Conference Communications
Canterbury Business School
University of Kent at Canterbury
Telephone: 01227 827348/9
Fax: 01227 828085
Mobile: 0374 800212

http://www.lambethconference.org